ABSTRACT
The first cities came into being more than 5,000 years ago, and Babylon already counted some 200,000 inhabitants in the sixth century B.C. Throughout history, the percentage of the total world population living in cities has constantly increased, except during periods of great social and economic disturbances, such as the so-called Dark Ages of Europe which followed the end of the Roman Empire. Practically everywhere, in modern times, farm children tend to abandon the country for the city when they have a chance. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, sociologists, novelists, and poets have presented a tragic and well-documented picture of the ordeals to which the laboring classes have been exposed in the tentacular cities. Urbanization has certainly been accelerated by the technologic and economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution, but these forces have only reinforced tendencies inherent in humankind. Despite appearances, urban life is quite compatible with mental health.
